Filming and editing the Preliminary Exercise

We filmed our preliminary exercise in Bridport on Saturday 30th Janunary. We met at Bridport Coach Station at 12.20 when my bus got to Bridport and then we walked to St Mary's play park which was chosen as the location for our film. The first problem encountered was that Leah had missed the bus from Weymouth to Bridport so she wasn't there for the filming of the preliminary exercise, so this shows us that for the next film we make, it would be a better idea to not film in Bridport or somewhere quite far away.

Before we got to the park, the group, along with our actors, stopped at Bridport Police Station to get a police reference number for permission to use the site and also to inform them as our film was based around a fake drug deal. This reference number is important for our health and safety paperwork.

I had never seen the location before as that was left to the members of the group - Tom and Amy - who lived near to Bridport. I thought the location was very suitable for our film, as elements of the site added to the mis-en-scene of our film. The graffiti on the walls of the hut in the park was an especially suitable addition to our crime-based film as it highlighted our theme. The dress codes of our actors are also important elements in the film, and the characters were dressed in hoodies or sportswear brands which were chosen specifically as we noticed the use of these types of clothing in films like Kidulthood which we looked at for research. This is a way in which we created representations of youth crime and drug dealing among young people, especially in a child-orientated place like a playing park.

We were also very lucky with the weather as it was a very sunny day, so the lighting for the filming would be good. It was quite windy though which caused a slight problem with the sound, but this could be fixed or covered with music in the editing process.
We used our storyboards a bit during the filming process, but the storyboards were drawn before the location was visited so we had to adapt to the actual location so we changed parts of our plan. Our script was used exactly during filming, but some lines were switched to the other character because it seemed to suit more to them when we were actually filming. We still did use a long shot for our first proper scene where the dealer is walking towards the park, and we did use over-the-shoulder shots during the dialogue. Technical codes were used and we did follow the 180 degree rule during the dialogue between the Dealer and the Buyer to keep the film continuous. The rule of thirds is also present in our film, signifying the most important part of our shots.

Overall, I think our filming was successful as we managed to stick to our schedule and we finished earlier than we thought we would. The actors learnt their lines quickly and we ran through all the dialogue 4 or 5 times from different angles so we could, when editing the film, have more shots to choose from. The fact the whole group wasn't there didn't really hinder our filming, but for next time we now know to film in a place that is easier to get to for the entire group. Mild problems were encountered at the end of the filming when people turned up at the park with their children but luckily that was close to the end so there wasn't disturbances during our filming.

The film was mainly edited by Tom at college as he had the best knowledge of editing in our group, but we chose the shots as a group and the music was chosen to add to the mis en scene of the film, as we used music to represent the particular youth culture. We chose drum n bass music with a fast pace to add to the mis-en-scene of our short film and link to the representations of stereotypes and common ideologies of modern youth culture in our film.

Here are links to the Production Paperwork:
Detailed Research into Genre
Production Schedule
Script for Exercise
Risk Assessment 1
Risk Assessment 2
Storyboard 1
Storyboard 2
Storyboard 3

Here is the final edit for 'The Meeting' which is posted on Youtube: